CivicApps.org in a nutshell

Back in the old days, i.e. 2008, cities like Portland would create apps (interactive websites) for us like this:

The old way of making apps

They’d get a team together, look at the Datasets available to it, come up with ideas, and then build the apps.  PortlandMaps, an awesome web app, was made this way.  But there’s a new trend and Portland’s setting an example for other cities.  First, the city adopts a policy of transparency, publishing all of its raw data in addition to the finished apps:

First, cities make their raw data available

Then, curious and entrepreneurial individuals, companies, and other organizations step in and independently create new apps.  This frees up city resources and results in more apps and services coming online:

Then, 3rd parties can step in and contribute

This is the entire purpose of the CivicApps.org project and website: to enable this creative environment.  By the way, this is the same idea behind the federal Data.gov project.

My idea: we can contribute data too

It occurred to me that many organizations have valuable data about the city.  And some even have the expertise to publish the data in “open formats” just like the city of Portland is doing:

My idea: We can provide datasets too

For example, my project, OregonLaws.org, publishes a glossary of legal terms specific to Oregon.  This is already up and running as a Dataset.

It will, though, take some work to implement my idea.  Some questions to answer are;  How will these 3rd party Datasets be integrated into the palette of “official” ones?  How will the data be authenticated or verified?

The near future

The end result of all this is that the city could become a nexus of information.  In addition to providing raw data about itself, it can act as a means of identification and authentication. There’s a precedent for the government acting in this role, e.g. the Secretary of State’s business registry performs a similar service.

Update

Oregon Business Magazine covered the CivicApps contest:  Keeping PDX a Hot Spot for App Development

1. The Safe Harbor provision sure does cover the YouTube site,
2. YouTube kicks a** implementing it, and finally,
3. Safe-Harbor-defeating “actual knowledge” of infringement means actual instances of infringement, not some vague knowledge of infringing activity, or whatever it was that Viacom was trying to assert.

Viacom v. YouTube, summary judgment order

I’m releasing a new open source library, HTTP-Assertions, that I use behind the scenes at OregonLaws.org.  It helps me keep the server running smoothly and make sure that my changes to the config files haven’t introduced new bugs.

It introduces these new assert methods to the Rails testing environment:

  assert_200
  assert_forbidden
  assert_temp_redirect_to
  assert_perm_redirect_to

Here’s an example:

  assert_200('https://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/161.360')

See the README on github for more details.

Orphan work: SpilledCoffee.jpg

Ironically, I was about to write a blog post, A New World of Orphan Works.  I had wanted a picture of spilled coffee in an ad for OregonLaws.org:  I had found this one online, perfect for my project, but without any attribution.  Contacting the web page author didn’t help.

Enter Tin Eye, a “reverse image search”. Upload an image, and it instantly finds many places on the web where it appears.

It may turn into a really useful tool for several purposes.  Here, it found unauthorized re-uses of a product logo belonging to Panic Software, a local Portland software shop:

Here, a more typical search result showing where one’s work ends up:

Finally, Tin Eye can be used to track down the origin of an “orphan work”.  In my case, I discovered that I already had the rights to use the image (stock photo in a collection I own).

http://www.tineye.com/

http://www.tineye.com/cool_searches

I just posted a laptop for sale on Craigslist and was deluged with scammers trying to get me to ship it to Nigeria.  This really intrigued me; is there a way to do something about it … that would, itself, be ethical?  Or, not unethical?  So for example, I really don’t want to steal from them; (scam the scammer.)

And then I had an AWESOME new idea for dealing with these people: I’d take whatever the scammer writes to me, and give it to ELIZA. And then, whatever ELIZA replies, I write back to the scammer.

The Robb Report, of course, is “The Global Luxury Source”.  They’re a reliable destination for Rolls-Royce reviews.  We can all probably agree that my blog and the Robb Report travel in different circles.

I’ve known about the magazine for years, most likely from seeing it in doctors’ waiting rooms.  And when choosing this name for my blog, one of my reasons was the humor arising from the contrast of the two Robb Reports, for those who are familiar with the senior mark holder.

But I wonder, (1) is what I’m doing ethical? And (2) am I infringing on Robb Report’s mark?

I’ll think about these more after this never-ending final exam period is over.

Basically, software should be held to the same standards we have for people, especially in the field of law. Here’s what that might look like. This is, again, the “development” interface… an end-user would see something much fancier:

>> Abbreviation.abbreviate 'Chief Justice'
=> "C.J."
>> Abbreviation.rule
=> "Appendix 3"

It’s a start.

As far as the technical implementation, I’ve been considering rule-based systems, prolog-based systems and object-oriented decomposition.

>> Abbreviation.abbreviate 'Advance'

=> "Adv."

>> Abbreviation.abbreviate 'Advanced'

=> "Adv."

>> Abbreviation.abbreviate 'Advancing'

=> "Advancing"

So, this has been pretty interesting. Now I need to handle plurals well. This, though, means I’ll have to be able to identify plurals… but I have a couple of good ideas about how to do this.